Contact Dan
Dan lives in Massachusetts and can be contacted by email at dfpmcomcast.net, or by telephone at 1-978-447-1620.

Dan is also a member coach in association with InnerCALL, the International Corporate Coaching Alliance.

Recommended Links
www.presence.net
www.leadersource.com
www.theinspiredteam.com
www.newstories.org
www.margaretwheatley.com
www.soulofmoney.org
www.robertfritz.com

Bibliography
Recommended Reading

"Leaders of the past knew how to tell; leaders of the future will be people who know how to ask, listen, and act while in relationship with others."

Dan's selected poetry:
Boy Dancing
Christmas In Ireland
Gravitational Matters
Muse
Millgirl
What The Seedstone Said (for Ireland)
The Widow McNamara
The Potato Story
Reading from The Aran Islands


Boy Dancing
The right shoe is scuffed, the stitching frayed;
the cardboard has worn thin under the left foot.
I feel the squish of decaying apples between my toes,
and the delicious aroma of the world strolls out.
It was a moment ago when I leapt into the sky,
before I stuck my finger into its white, gliding dimples
and landed on a mound of welcoming apples,
generations of fragrance piled up the seasoned barn.
My feet ran away from the shoes, your shoes,
now the ceiling of my brain feels scruffy as bare feet
on a weathered roof. I'm at the edge, ready to fly once again,
ready to dance into the flesh of passing blue sky.
Everything wears off--the skin of the sky,
the blue fancy of free-falling up that happens only once
then repeats itself until a lucky-dancing boy sees
how the shifting feeling lasts, is repeated over and over.
Standing at the edge of the barn roof, I hover on tiptoe,
waiting for the holy moment when I'll breathe in and rise,
and take a blue stride into the sky, plunging into a mountain
of fallen apples under the soles of my descending feet.

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Christmas In Ireland
(I.M. of Mary Sweeney, County Cork, Dorchester, MA)
I don't know who came first, poets or friends.
Nevertheless, it was the funeral parlor
that caused me to meet Mary Sweeney.
She lay in a casket surrounded by
flowers, family, and neighbors;
the distant scent of green mountains,
heathered valleys,
waterfalls, and streams.
A seal was heard sounding
a tenor voice with a soft wail.
Coastal waters rumbled rhythmically.
Blind villagers danced a reel,
Old Timmy lilted along.
Deirdre danced on the tip of a wave.
Cuchulainn and Oisin argued over
who would be pallbearers.
It would be familiar work.
It is interesting how the sound
of a poem begins like railroad tracks
and the train isn't seen till the end.
Sure, God be thanked, we're all together
beneath one roof.
And the train arrived on schedule.
Flowers, family, and neighbors got aboard.
The seal sat up front, singing;
O, the cares of tomorrow must wait 'til this day...
Several fine villagers sat down in relief,
Timmy had finally taken a nap.
Deirdre sat next to Cuchulainn,
and Oisin kept notes. You and I smiled,
for didn't we know,
There's hope from the ocean,
but there's none from the grave.
As the train tugged uphill, we glanced backward.
Mary Sweeney stood there waving goodbye.
Her mother tacked up another motto.
There was a mild mist a-gatherin' in the glen.
Her father placed a yule log on the fire,
and the countryside became still and white.
Christmas bells danced over the valley below.
Mary was at peace, arrangements had been made
for her to stay a little while in Ireland.

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Gravitational Matters (for Mike Flynn)
For breakfast, one must be firmly careful these days
if one wants to approach well-being without guilt.
Three large eggs and three discreet slabs of piglet
bacon each morn is sufficient to weigh down
your arteries. And if you were to eat these immature
foods as a daily diet they will burden your ability
to function as a person. You might find it enlightening
to go out into the coop and locate fresh eggs,
lift them, transport them carefully up somewhere
and chamber them in hollowness until they hatch.
Then float off to the pen and gather all the piglets
and conduct them off to an anti-gravity mud-hole
over the hill. When you've accomplished these clever
charades, go home and sit down, grab a pencil out of
the air and write down how the cracked shells of the past
might have grown into downy chicks and the three little
piglets might have floated into a weightless imagination
for future reading by analogous generations and the wolf
might have had a couple of good meals, and we might have
heard the last of the little chickens live to tell the tale
that The sky is falling, the sky is falling.

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Muse (I.M. John K. Pearce, M.D.)
Do you think, O mortals, that I shall endure,
Fit to enlighten with my insightful eyes?
I may lend the silence of a moonrise,
I may ease your heartache with my allure.
I'm round sound of overwhelming song
That soars above the blundering of words
Yet wing easy in the manner of birds,
I'm smooth rhythm rushing through the storm.
It is in woodlands you begin to feel,
Start, listening for the singing in my eyes,
Appealing stars for rest you want to steal.
Walk with this musing man, your flaws and all,
Whether your dreams sing or fall or die,
'Tis on warm winds you'll hear my call.

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Millgirl (I.M., My Mother)
Colleen. Wake now.
Go weave your waving wings,
taste the seeds, eat the buoyant blue,
inhale the flaxflower scent of loom,
sow your seeds in flight,
flap your flaxen hair in air,
my butterfly, my Colleen.
Dance up the airy ferns and rushes,
dance up the fields of flaxflower bloom,
wet your patterned wings with dampness,
fly your supple self so fair,
softly lace the darkened night,
when you were where,
my Colleen, my siskin care.
Before you go, take one last dance in dreamy air,
leave me lowly lapping wings,
ascend and unfold.
Thread through growing light.
Let my fingers reach the dark,
when you were where,
my Colleen, my linen queen.

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What The Seedstone Said (for Ireland)
An emerald Queen came, flowing through the Fair,
a change of shape flashed in the silver air,
a gold hush swayed, dancing on and on.
I caught her hair between the moon and me;
I held her shadow, listened to its song.
Turning away, I hoped she would remain.
I looked for her, but everyone was rain.
A tune seeped out, within a leafy form;
a scent of sounds in grain, some words with seeds.
She loved me until all my dreams were gone.

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The Widow McNamara
(I.M., my Great Grandmother, 1833-1929. Whitegate, County Clare, Ireland)
Silence burns her eyes,
clear as the ring of a sixteen stringed harp.
Thin lips are slender as a corpse's breath;
the shriek of a child freezes in frost-dark.
You make your wispy choices:
which berries to eat, which roots to dig,
which traps to set.
Cold air wizens your face,
hollows your cheekbones,
knits your brow.
Fingers grasp like a ferocious bird,
claws flex, poised to strike.
Strings play a tale
telling of harvest's death,
and centuries cast shadows
across blighted fields.
Multitudes of blades shiver
in whispering husks.
Your husband Peter starves
in carrion fields where domestic dogs
run wild, their muzzles clotted purple.
The Shannon River churns like molten steel,
and a million mouths lose their breath.
Nettles sting empty tongues.
A two-roomed cottage gathers itself.
Outside, a battering ram stands waiting.
Inside, you boil pig grease
over the turf fire.
Your husband sends his voice.
You want to cry:
the landlord keeps you busy
with cleverness and debt.
The double-door rages open.
Feel the burning liquid splash,
hear the redcoats fumbling
like scorched beggars.
Now I see the hidden talons
in your eyes.
Your story flows like children
born between black and gray clouds.

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The Potato Story
Imagine a potato. It is good and hard and smells of earth. There is roundness to this potato, circularity with wondrous indentations like a Euclidean formula with ravishing eyes. Hold it in your hands. Isn't it refreshing to roll such coolness in your palms on this unusually hot and dry autumn day? The ache in your back recedes and you take long strides away from the potato patches. The tribal feeling of wholeness tugs at the boundary of your awareness. You are holding an earthen-fleshed miracle that you planted back in springtime.

Today is not a rare day; it is an exceptional day. You have just harvested your first potato for this season and your four children are waiting. Unusual joy is heard from the cabin and the white-streaked blue sky contains an array of blueprints for you. You enter the full cabin and your wife's lips contain a smile as alluring as a churn of fresh butter. She takes the potato and places it in an earthen oven.

Within minutes the skin, then the flesh of the potato splits open. She juggles the wonder in her hands and places it on the thick wooden table. The children are wide-eyed from its aroma. A breadth of luscious, yellow butter melts at the potato's center and seeps into its skin. A dash of salt appears crystalline and clear on the potato's pith. When you raise the potato to your mouth, you begin to salivate. Careful, it's hot. With one pleasurable bite you know the pail full of potatoes you left at the garden will be welcomed by the family.

Imagine children vomiting grass. Now imagine a ripe, nourishing potato. Both of these things exist. You are in a field with one of them. The mind does that, that's what it's for. It takes you to novel, unforeseen places. Get close to the children. See the four stages of hunger. Hear the retching sounds that are overpowered by the stench of blackening, rotting potatoes. Brown grass, sedge, and limp stalks are everywhere, and the seepage from patches of rot covers the earth. A rough-hewn coffin with metal hinges is in silhouette on the horizon. The latest child to die is not being carried away.

One of your rivaling brothers comes roaming over a hill and the horse he's riding is collapsing. Although they're not clacking yet, the outline of the horse's ribs is visible; the waiting wind does not yet wail through the ribbed cage. You need to feed your brother, but the potato you've been saving for days is softening, decaying. You feel stomach pains from the hunger. You may be hungry as your starving brother, but not quite as weak. The potato is becoming foul and you want to go out and get help. How much more of this can you take? As you wander the outside territory, the scavengers are flogging each other and the carrion stench stretches out like vultures' wings. There are so many people fighting feverishly for too few potatoes.

Should you share your potato with some of the scavengers, or return and give it to your brother? Perhaps it would be wise if you ate it yourself before you weaken and lose the chance to live. This is a choice you have, but for how long? How long does it take to decide? Can you decide?

Imagine that you are confined in a cave located on the side of a barren hill. There are guards waiting for you to make an escape. They already know that you're going to attempt to escape, and they know the method you've dreamed up. Everyone in control knows and everyone not in control knows. There are no secrets. The only thing that no one knows is the extent of the slaughter if you don't escape and tell someone. Tens of thousands, perhaps millions, will be frozen, or burnt, or captured and will die. The torturers will come tonight. They always come at night begging for your life. You don't think about the night, however, but about a freshly baked potato lavished with butter and some tasty salt that is being offered you. How long does it last? The potato is steaming and aromatic and it reminds you of a brook where sunlight sparkles on the surface. At a wide bend in the brook a swirling pool forms into the shape of a bowl.

On the rim of the bowl there are berries and fruit trees. The reflection in the bowl holds cranberries, blueberries, and apple and pear trees. When you were a child, you would stand on a handcrafted raft and cast out from shore onto the center of this bowl. The bowl, formed by the curve in the brook, was your home. Often, when the sun reflected on the brook at the precise angle, the bowl turned as golden as the wheat on a ripe field at sunset. It is not your brother's weakness from hunger, nor the starving children, nor your own hunger pains that is ruining you, but the absence of the golden bowl formed by the bend in the brook. If you could only hold the bowl in your hands, you could endure anything. At least that's what you tell yourself. The potato the guards offer you is divisive, and it does not mean life.

There were once two sisters. One was rich but had no children; the other had four sons but was a widow, and extremely poor. She had no food, so she went to her rich sister's door and asked for a handful of potatoes; even one potato for each son would do for now. My sons are dying, she implored. The rich sister lied, saying, I don't have enough for myself, and drove her away from the door. Then the monarch of the rich sister visited her home. He insisted he be fed a freshly baked potato, but when he thrust a fork into it the potato began to weep loudly.

The sack of potatoes I am conjuring for you is at the Super Market of the World and hovers a yard above the potato bins. The bin is an undistinguished one, a normal bin containing no trap doors. Beneath the sack of potatoes, a cast iron skillet floats. No strings attach the skillet to the sack or the sack to the overhead lights or the skillet to the bin. When you ran your hand under the skillet and over the sack, you didn't touch the potatoes. Why not? Are you frightened that you may be imagining something, or that you are being deceived? The skillet moves closer to the potatoes and becomes hot. There's no doubt that you can smell the aroma of the potatoes as they begin to cook, and the sound of sizzling is attracting your attention. As steam rises above the potatoes, their skin begins to swell like a pregnant woman or to bloat like the empty stomach of a starving child. They look real enough. Can you consume one of these potatoes? Can you trust what is in front of you?

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Reading from The Aran Islands (for Peter O'Connor)
I am in Aranmor, sitting over a turf fire, listening to a murmur
Near the warmth of the hearth,
my uncle Petey shifts the turf,
arranges ashes, spins the smoldering
stories in his head to see
did my wife, Joan, not get it right.
Her voice blows the fire's remains
back to life. Uncle's eyes, ember-red
flickers of flames, spark like tiny lanterns
fleeting across his face,
a face lined with legends.
His work-gnarled hands, sooty,
poke at the fire with an ash branch,
while a fiery glow spins the tufted words
into summoning darkness,
ascending the walls of his room.

A mist gathers, bees fumble in lilacs, and white
flowering potatoes lounge in their drowsy beds.
See you next summer, Petey.
My uncle, the elder of An Geata Bá *
one willowy forearm leaning on, haunting
the door frame, whispers, You won't.
Our shoulders lean forward as
tears seep through his eyes, eyes like
silver relics found beneath the bog.
His chest wheezes, heavy with the leaving.
Slashes of rain cleanse the creases of his face.
Petey retreats into hearthside shadows,
At the pulse of his temple,
Joan whispers, Mo Grá Thu **
Did she, my wife, not get it right?

* An Geata Bá: Whitegate, County Clare.
** Mo Grá Thu: I love you.

© 2007 Copyrighted by Daniel Patrick Murphy. All rights reserved.


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